I’ve always resented the fact that in many countries, as a “foreigner”, I’ve often had to cough-up much higher rates than a “local” to use public transport, stay in a hotel, or enter a public site.

I fully appreciate the widely-held belief that in some countries (particularly the very poor ones), that this revenue is used to support a wider economic dividend for the population. However, in my experience, such monies invariably end up in the hands of crooked government officials or businesses.

Scotland has experienced a massive tourism boom over recent years and hotels and tourist-based businesses are increasing their revenues year on year (see FMQ’s today). Maybe these businesses should be forking-out the tax.

If a city can show where tourist tax money is spent AND ring fence it then maybe it's an idea. Too many taxes just disappear into a black hole for me.

Ring fenced / hypothecated taxes are rarely a good idea.

As for the ‘that’s what council tax is for’...you are missing the point completely.

Tourism, while supporting local jobs and businesses, puts additional strain on the city in terms of infrastructure and management of events etc. The additional costs of which are not directly reflected in the income to the council (council tax for example is paid by residents not tourists or businesses).

Further more the SG takes a large chunk of the business rates and reallocates the money out of the city.

So a tourist tax is simply an additional revenue stream for the council to partly mitigate the costs associated with having a city that has such large tourist numbers.

That said I think this is just a symptom of the broken method of funding councils and the services hey are expected to provide.

I would be advocating a complete change of approach where the provision of housing, education and social care is overseen by a completely different body compared to the city services provided. When you look at the money spent by the council you soon see that the vast majority of its expenditure has nothing to do with street maintenance, cleaning, infrastructure etc yet most residents seem to think this is its primary function.

I find it rather odd that we expect Councils to be able to deliver such disparate and diverse services effectively (and therefore no surprise when they struggle to do so) and think its high time a wholesale review of provision, responsibly and funding was undertaken for local government.

As for the ‘that’s what council tax is for’...you are missing the point completely.

Tourism, while supporting local jobs and businesses, puts additional strain on the city in terms of infrastructure and management of events etc. The additional costs of which are not directly reflected in the income to the council (council tax for example is paid by residents not tourists or businesses).

Further more the SG takes a large chunk of the business rates and reallocates the money out of the city.

So a tourist tax is simply an additional revenue stream for the council to partly mitigate the costs associated with having a city that has such large tourist numbers.

That said I think this is just a symptom of the broken method of funding councils and the services hey are expected to provide.

I would be advocating a complete change of approach where the provision of housing, education and social care is overseen by a completely different body compared to the city services provided. When you look at the money spent by the council you soon see that the vast majority of its expenditure has nothing to do with street maintenance, cleaning, infrastructure etc yet most residents seem to think this is its primary function.

I find it rather odd that we expect Councils to be able to deliver such disparate and diverse services effectively (and therefore no surprise when they struggle to do so) and think its high time a wholesale review of provision, responsibly and funding was undertaken for local government.

Alternatively, they could move their business plan away from tourism, and manage a city that supports itself through traditional industries, such as brewing, printing, and electronics. Oh, wait...

Seems to me tourism is being driven by the huge increase in the middle class from Asia not by a cunning plan dreamt up by the council.

Anyway there is nothing wrong with Edinburgh’s economy and it is in fact one of the strongest in the UK across numerous metrics. On GVA per head it is second only to London.

The financing of its council and what its council is tasked to do is where the problem lies.

Those bozos never had an original idea in their lives. Whatever is driving it, it's not them.

I can't help feeling we are paying enough council tax to maintain the town as a middle sized city. I was interested in what you said about the government skinning off cash, and investing it outside the city.

At the end of the day I would probably prefer the city was run by SPFL level politicians, than the pub league players we have on the council.

A tourist tax is great idea and it gives councils extra revenue to run their authority. Our councils badly need more revenue and ways to raise it as Holyrood has been power grabbing for at least 10 years

Those bozos never had an original idea in their lives. Whatever is driving it, it's not them.

I can't help feeling we are paying enough council tax to maintain the town as a middle sized city. I was interested in what you said about the government skinning off cash, and investing it outside the city.

At the end of the day I would probably prefer the city was run by SPFL level politicians, than the pub league players we have on the council.

Yeah I think our view on the quality of local administration leadership is aligned.

I can’t remember the exact numbers re local authority financing and think the methodologies have changed over the years, what I am certain of is that Edinburgh gets a bum deal and is bottom of the list on £ spent per head of population.

The council is an easy target, but on this occasion that's not true and it's not fair.

The council have been working at increasing tourism in the city for decades.

Plot on a graph though, and you will probably see a massive upsurge in the last 10 years, mostly from China and the Sub Continent.

Tourism hasn't always been unpopular in Edinburgh. Who wants to live a place that people don't want to visit.

The council's "strategy" has been to pack in as many visitors as it possibly can. In the process they have ignored the needs of residents, eg getting around town, getting to work etc; they have also sold an increasingly tatty and overpriced product.

Last year there were rats in the bins on the Royal Mile. That's how inept they actually are, they can't even maintain the product.

Which 'they' are you referring to here - elected Councillors or the permanent officials?

Implementing a Tourist Tax is a complete no-brainer. The vast number of visitors generated by a mixture of the dumb luck of our history and location, the hard work that goes into maintaining profile through the festivals and Hogmanay and the city's attractiveness as a work and academic location means that a huge amount of demand is placed on public services without a direct means of recouping the costs.

All that visitor traffic is good for business and jobs - and incidentally has a significant trickle-down effect elsewhere in Scotland geographically - but the Council itself sees little benefit in revenue terms to assist in the provision of all the services a city needs to support these visitor activities.

There's a mechanism for regulating how the Council spends its money - local elections. So if you don't like how the SNP-led coalition currently in charge of Edinburgh is performing, whether on counting demonstration sizes or providing decent roads or bin collections, you can vote for someone else next time.